The Day After Christmas-in-April in review: So, I had to leave the house right after the 11th pick of Round 1 last night to go see Avengers Endgame (my new “BME,” btw…Best. Movie. Ever! We’ll talk about that more next week after more of you have had a chance to see it.) So, despite my utter rage at pick #6, I didn’t know anything about the rest of Round 1 until about 1:30AM, when I got home. And I stayed up until about 2:00 trying to piece together what I had, personally, done to Giants GM, Dave Gettleman, to make him so pissed at me! Because I took these picks PERSONALLY! Surely he MUST know that, right after my fam, comes the Giants in my heart. That my favorite days of my life–the ones that will flash before my eyes as I’m dying, are: 1) the birth of my son, 2) my wedding day; 3) Obama’s first Pres. Election win; 4-7) the Giants 4 Super Bowl wins; 8) Obama’s 2nd Pres. Election win; 9-12) the release of the 4 Avengers Movies… But I digress.
So, with a few hours worth of sleep and an hour on the MTA with which to contemplate, I’ve decided that I actually hate the reasoning behind the picks even more than the players picked, if that makes sense. If you had told me before the draft that we would wind up with Dexter Lawrence and DeAndre Baker, I would’ve been fine with that–happy, even. I like those guys! I think they make our team better than we were yesterday. We lost: Vernon, Mauro, Edwards and Wynn in the last 6 weeks…all of whom play D-line. So clearly we needed a D-line infusion from this draft, and Lawrence is a HUGE presence in the middle of the line that can probably help us shut down the run, in rotation with Tomlinson. And DeAndre Baker probably will be a solid CB–the man hasn’t given up a TD pass in 2 years! And maybe that lets us trade Janoris Jenkins (+ a pick or 2, probably) in order to add another pick in the 2nd Round–where now we only have The Great Void of 63 picks until we’re on the clock again! And perhaps Daniel Jones will turn out to BE Eli Manning, Jr, and win us a Super Bowl one day…perhaps. But that doesn’t justify the way in which we got them.
First let me also add that, had they been picked in the exact reverse order, we all probably would be a lot less pissed off. If Baker was chosen at #6, though I would’ve still been mad as hell that we didn’t take Josh Allen or Ed Oliver, at least I would’ve understood that since we rea-a-ally need CBs, that makes some sense, and maybe we can now trade Janoris for a 2nd-rounder, yadda, yadda. That would have been annoying, but a bit more understandable. Frankly, I don’t think this is a great CB crop, so if you think there’s only one great one (Baker), then you gotta grab him early. And I’m fine with Dexter at #17–though I think we could’ve traded down to ~20-23 and gotten another pick…and probably still gotten Dexter. And if we had traded up to get Jones…AFTER Haskins was gone, but still in the 1st round (at #30, just like we did trade up to) so that we could have that 5th year option on a QB who likely won’t play much if at all his first year, well, that would’ve actually seemed like a “savvy” move. So, we’d have had the same 3 players, but all of these people wouldn’t be storming Giants-ville HQ in a mob asking for Gettleman’s head on a platter (look outside your window–it’s a thing). Hence, the process is worse than the results.
That said, Josh Allen and Ed Oliver are much more likely to be the next LT and Aaron Donald than Daniel Jones is to be the next Tom Brady!
Which means, we blew it.
Not that I expect any of those 3 players to become any of those 3 legends, but you get the point. The floor is lower…so is the ceiling…for Daniel Jones than for Allen & Oliver. And I am certain that we could’ve had Jones at #9 (when Oliver was taken), if not later. Which means that, at the least, we should’ve traded down to #9 and asked for Buffalo’s 2nd round pick (#40 overall). So even if we didn’t take Allen or Oliver, at least we could’ve gotten a few more 2nd-round picks back to load up with at other positions.
Here’s how that phone call would’ve played out, made right after the Bucs took Devin White @ #5:
Getty/us: Hey Bills, we’re thinking of taking Josh Allen or Ed Oliver, but I was wondering if you’d want one of them?
Them (salivating): Um, well, yeah, sure, we’ll take one of them off your hands if they’re a burden.
Us: Okay, but we’ll need your #9 & #40.
Them (drooling): Well, um, okay, I guess that’s fair (read: Is that ALL?!)
And there you have it. We have an extra 2nd-round pick and STILL get to draft Jones if we want to at #9. Neither Jax, Detroit or Buffalo–the 3 teams picking right after us–needed a QB, so it’s not like we were gonna miss out on taking Jones by waiting until #9. And Buffalo would’ve been very concerned that Allen &/or Oliver could go before #9–they should have–so they’d have been all in.
Another point: imagine for a moment that we took Allen OR Oliver, & then Lawrence at #17 (and kept our #37 pick). Our defense would be looking much better now. And we’d still have a chance to add either a CB or a RT at #37, and still have had all of our picks left. Would that have been so terrible?
Instead, I have to watch Allen wreak havoc for Jax, and Oliver for Buffalo (who we play in Week 2 this year, btw), and probably watch Haskins (who is on Washington now) outplay Jones for a decade or more.
But that Avengers Endgame, man, that was SOME MOVIE!
As in, breathe, Clayton, breathe…it’s only a football draft…